


Dreams and disasters

by ailyn_moreau



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rescue Missions, otp: winter biochemist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2016486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailyn_moreau/pseuds/ailyn_moreau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma has been taken by unknown forces and everyone is feeling the strain while they work to find her.  Bucky isn't going to let anything stop him from getting her back, but he may need a little help along the way.  A follow up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1829587">Never did run smooth</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1859331">Sunrise, Sunset</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [litm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litm/gifts).



> For litm, who gave me the quote at the beginning of the fic as a prompt. Many thanks to snarkylittlespeedster for the beta! Go check some of her works out too :)

_"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you." - Jane Austen_

* * *

_“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”_

_The woman blinked and gave him a funny look, as if the idea had never occurred to her. She only halted for a moment in her work, seemingly more out of confusion than anything else. “Why should I be?”_

_He was taken aback by her response. Wasn’t it obvious? “You know who I am, what I’ve done, what I’m capable of…”_

_This time she paused, looking him straight in the eye, gaze not wavering from his in the slightest. “Is that who you are now?”_

_“No? I don’t know…I don’t want to be...” He hadn’t expect the question, and he honestly didn’t know how to answer. The point of all of this was so that he wouldn’t have to be the Winter Soldier anymore, so he could be himself again. Or some semblance of it. He’d never really be who he was before HYDRA got their hands on him._

_“Then what reason would I have to be afraid?” She said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world, like there would be no other conclusion a reasonable person could make. He wasn’t even sure Natasha would have been able to say that, and yet this small little scientist with no combat training felt safe around him. He was so stunned by this revelation that he felt like he was seeing her for the first time, like he’d finally gotten a glimpse of the core of who she was._

_It wasn’t true, of course. She’d always been like this; so similar to Steve in some ways, and yet so different. He just hadn’t recognized it before, realized just how special she was. Despite everything she’d seen she was still hopeful, still willing to put her faith in a man who a few scant months ago would have killed them all without a second thought. There weren’t many people in the world like that...not many at all._

_He didn’t realize he was staring until he caught a view of her arched eyebrow. “Is everything alright?”_

_He gave her a little smile, shaking himself out of his reverie. “Yeah, I’m fine.”_

_She didn’t look like she was sure, but she took him at his word with a little nod. “Now, let’s try this again…”_

He felt like he was watching things play out from far away, a haze settled over him keeping everything from being clear. Was this a memory? A dream? It seemed important. _She_ seemed important. There was a name on the tip of his tongue…

_Jemma._

His eyes flew open, everything suddenly snapping back into place. The light was too bright, and there was something in his arm, an infernal beeping in the background, hands touching him with cold instruments, and _no no no not again_ , he couldn’t let them steal his identity again…

He jolted up, pushing them away, knocking a table of horribly familiar surgical tools over in his wake. “Get away from me!” he yelled. He would have kept going, pulled the IV from his arm, struck them all down where they stood if it weren’t for the blonde man from his memories stepping in and ordering the wide-eyed people in white lab coats out. _Steve._ He knew Steve. Steve was safe. He was still tense, poised and ready to attack at the barest hint of anything being wrong, but he stopped his assault as the others quickly exited the room, not wanting to risk the wrath of the former Winter Soldier.

“Bucky, they were just trying to help.”

“You know damn well that I don’t let anyone but Jemma-” his breath hitched when the sound of her name falling from his lips made him remember why he was here in the first place. He felt his chest constrict as his eyes met Steve’s frantically. “She is here, right? You got to her in time, didn’t you? Tell me you did, Steve. Tell me you did.”

His guilty silence was all that Bucky needed to know the truth of the matter. Bucky moved to pull out his IV but Steve grabbed his wrist to stop him before he could. Anger spiked dangerously high and Bucky had to suppress the urge to forcibly remove his friend’s hand and slam him against the wall. Before his deconditioning he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself, but Jemma had helped him work past that. Jemma had helped him work past a lot of things.

The glare he gave Steve would have scared anyone else off immediately, but his friend didn’t back down. The kid from Brooklyn never had been easy to intimidate. “How could you leave her there?”

“We didn’t. She was already gone when I got there. It was lucky I was even able to find you under all the rubble.”

Bucky tried to pull his wrist back, but Steve didn’t release it. “Let. Me. Go. I need to find her. We can’t just leave her in their hands, she’s not like us, she isn’t prepared to deal with what we are-”

“Bucky,” Steve cut him off. “We don’t know where she is, and you’re too hurt to go after her. You need to let the doctors-”

“How long have they had her?”

“Bucky-”

_“How long have they had her!”_ He only had so much restraint, and Steve was pushing him beyond the boundaries of it.

He was quiet for a moment. “A day. Fitz figured out that they injected her with a tracker, and Skye has been trying to identify the signal and trace it, but they don’t have much to go from. So even if I let you go, we don’t know where to go. I need you to get better so that when we do find her you’re healed enough to go with us after her.”

His anxiety rose when he said a day, but as the rest of his friend’s words sunk in, frustrating as they were, he knew they made sense. This time when he pulled his wrist away Steve let it go, and Bucky leaned back in the bed he was in. “You’re not going to stop me from going after her?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Once we know, you’ll know. But for now the best thing you can do for her is heal up.”

“I’m still not letting the fucking doctors near me.” Jemma had admonished him for that too, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know them, didn’t trust him, and anyone coming at him with medical instruments in this environment would just trigger a rage he wouldn’t be able to control.

Steve made a frustrated noise at that, but didn’t argue. “Fine. Just don’t go pulling things out, alright?”

“I’m not making any promises. If you don’t have any leads in the next few hours, I’m going after her anyway.”

Steve didn’t reply, but Bucky didn’t really expect him to. He was compromising as it was by agreeing to wait. Knowing that Jemma was out there alone was tearing him apart far worse than any of the physical pain he felt. He wouldn’t be able to control his urge to go after her for as long as Steve would like, but Bucky honestly didn’t give a shit. He was going to find her and the devil could take anyone who got in his way. In fact, he’d send them right to hell gift-wrapped and ready for its fires, and even Steve wouldn’t be able to stop him.

~*~

Natasha was waiting for Steve when he finally left the med bay, arms crossed and looking slightly pensive. “That went better than I thought it would,” she remarked.

Steve gave a small sigh, running a hand through his hair as he started walking back up to the command center of the bus where Skye and Fitz were frantically looking for anything that would lead them to Jemma. Natasha fell into step beside him. “We need to find her or we’re going to lose him,” Steve admitted. “He’s about ready to go off, I can tell.”

“He’s not the only one SHIELD’s going to lose if we don’t.” Steve wasn’t sure who in particular she was talking about. Fitz, probably, but for all he knew there could be more. Jemma had made an impression on all of them. Even _Natasha_ had a soft spot for her and that was hard to pull off. If anyone was the beating heart of what remained of SHIELD, it was her, and if she didn’t come back the organization would be shaken to its core. He could already feel the cracks forming in her absence; tensions were high, tempers strained. They needed to bring her back. “What the hell was Coulson thinking sending her out there alone?”

“You know how thinly stretched we are. Who else was there to send? She was already out there. And Bucky was with her,” Steve pointed out. No, Jemma wasn’t the best in the field, but she was better than she used to be. He knew the necessity of that bothered Bucky, and truthfully him as well. They’d had long conversations about it, in fact, but ultimately it wasn’t up to them, it was up to her, and Jemma had never been one to back down from doing the right thing. Even if the right thing put her in more danger than she ever had any right to be in.

“And look what good that did,” Natasha said bitterly. “Besides, he didn’t know that. It was lucky he was there or this would be even worse. Has anyone gotten out of him why he was there?”

Steve shook his head. Bucky hadn’t said a word about that, but he could guess. “Why do you think?”

Natasha made a small, slightly derisive noise. “He probably still hasn’t said a word to her about it, either.”

“She wouldn’t stand for it if she knew. She cares too much.”

“I think they’re the only two who don’t know the feeling is mutual. When we get her back we should do something about that.”

“Always the matchmaker, aren’t you?” Steve said, lips forming a slight smile.

“Everyone needs a hobby,” she said with a shrug.

The mood became more somber as soon as they hit the command center of the Bus to find Skye and Fitz tossing phrases back and forth at what felt like a million miles a minute. Fitz had come a long way in the two years since Ward dropped him and Jemma into the ocean, but he still struggled sometimes to express exactly what he was thinking. This didn’t seem to be one of those times, considering how quickly he and Skye were speaking, but there was a tension in the air that could only mean they weren’t as close to figuring things out as they’d hoped.

“Without the protocols I can’t recreate the signal!”

“Can’t you, like, dissect it or something to figure that out? If you can give me something, _anything_ , I can trace it.”

“No, but I might be able to get you a frequency range-”

“-which I can correlate with activity along the nearby towers-”

“-and maybe narrow down the area somewhat. But-”

“Whoa, can you two slow down for a second and explain what’s going on...in English, please?” Steve interrupted.

Fitz and Skye turned in unison, both surprised at the interruption. It reminded Steve far too much of how Fitz and Jemma often were, which only made her absence all the more apparent.

“There hasn’t been any chatter on the comms we’ve been monitoring, but considering how this was set up that doesn’t surprise me. They might very well know those lines of communication were compromised and chose not to use them. I was able to track the vehicles that they took her in a ways, but we lose them about here,” Skye said while pointing to a spot on the map they had displayed.

“She was injected with nanobots which I’m guessing when activated transmit a signal, but I haven’t been able to locate the activation protocols. I’m trying to work around that and find a possible frequency range based on the mechanics, but there’s clearly an external component to all of this that I don’t have,” Fitz added, frustration clear in his voice.

“Her palm never stopped bleeding at the injection point.”

Steve turned around at the familiar voice interrupting them. “Bucky, you’re not supposed to be-”

“I’m not running off, now am I? I even left the IV in, just like you asked,” he said, gesturing to the the now-mobile drip he’d wheeled into the room with him.

Natasha gave an amused snort at that, to which Steve gave her a rather stern look. “What?” she said. “He’s right. He is doing what you asked.”

Bucky ignored them. “She said something about an anticoa...antiloant…”

“Anticoagulant? To make it easier to flow through the bloodstream. So they’d be in there until flushed from her body. Which means if we can find the frequency…” Fitz started.

“...we can find her. Fitz, could that be the activation? Could they be coded to her dna or something?”

Fitz frowned. “Jemma would be the one who could tell you that. But...it’s possible, yes. Maybe that would activate the ones that are left?”

“And then you can find the frequency-”

“-and you can trace it.”

“How soon can you get this done?” Steve asked, impressed with how quickly the two of them were able to take the new information and work it into a solution.

“An hour tops for the frequency,” Fitz said confidently.

“If the signal’s still transmitting, it shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to pinpoint it,” Skye added.

“Well, don’t let us stop you,” Steve said, giving them permission to get to work, not that it was needed. They’d already started before he could even finish his sentence.

He turned back to Bucky and gave him a look, to which Bucky rolled his eyes and lifted a hand, already turning around and heading out. “I’m going, I’m going,” the man muttered.

Natasha waited until he was out of earshot before muttering, “I give him ten minutes before he’s already back up and pestering Fitz and Skye for updates.”

“That’s generous. I was only going to give him five,” Steve replied.

A tiny smirk crossed her face, but faded just as quickly. “Guess we’d better let Coulson know what’s happening.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, we should,” he said starting toward the office. This wasn’t going to be a fun call, but at least it would be better than the last one. Almost anything would have been better than that.


	2. Chapter 2

_She was alone in the lab when he arrived. It had been a couple of months since they last time they’d been in the same place at the same time, and he knew she wasn’t expecting him. He was eager to see her, yet he paused before entering. The lab was mostly dark, leaving her illuminated by just a couple of screens and the moving figures on holotable she seemed to be working with. The glow lit her body in a way that made her seem ethereal, a shining otherworldly presence in a world of shadows and darkness. In that moment she was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen and it made his heart ache. She didn’t deserve this life. She might have chosen it, but she was too good for it. She deserved far better than any of them could give her._

_He would have continued watching her, but at that moment she looked up from her work and her eyes found his. A delighted grin broke across her face and he went ahead and entered, knowing he couldn’t linger outside any longer. The moment he entered she practically tackled him with a hug, and he couldn’t help the smile that was growing on his own face as he returned it. He missed being around her, her enthusiasm, her infectious optimism. She was unique among the ragtag remnants of SHIELD, and there were few people he enjoyed being around more._

_“Bucky! It’s so good to see you! I wasn’t expecting you for another month at least. I take it things went well?”_

_He nodded. As well as they could have. “Everything went like clockwork for once. Things here are good? What are you working on?”_

_She almost looked embarrassed for a moment. “It’s a little...side-project of mine, I suppose. Since we recovered the data on GH-325 and several variants of the original super soldier serum, like the Centipede formula and Extremis, I’ve been trying to isolate the chemical compounds that enhance healing. See, these here…”_

_She took his hand and pulled him over to the holo table, starting to pulling up various chemical structures, talking excitedly about what she’d been working on. He didn’t understand much of it, but he watched her with interest nonetheless, captivated more by how alive she became while speaking so passionately about her work. He loved seeing her like this, and it put him at ease to see that some parts of her hadn’t been touched by this shadow war they were waging with HYDRA._

_“...and I’m rambling again. Honestly, Bucky, you can stop me when I do that, you don’t have to listen out of politeness when I’m boring you to tears.”_

_He chuckled. “You’re not. It’s...cute when you do this.” Cute wasn’t the right word, not even close to describe just what seeing her like this did to him. How when he saw such wonder in her that it made the world seem just a little more right, it made it easier to forget the shitstorm they were trying to stay afloat in. No,_ cute _wasn’t the right word at all, but it was the only one he could admit to._

_It was hard to tell for sure because of the dim light, but he would swear that a faint blush crept up her cheeks. “I...thanks? I think.”_

_He stepped a bit closer to her, and the space between them nearly disappeared. “Jemma…” He didn’t know what the right way to put just what she stirred in him was, but he didn’t want to leave her thinking he meant what he said in any way other than that she was one of the most remarkable people he’d ever met. The air between them seemed to shift, suddenly charged as she looked up at him while he tried to figure out just what to say. Or maybe words weren’t the right way to go about this…_

_He was a moment away from deciding how to handle it when they were interrupted. “Hey Jemma!” Skye opened the door to the lab, and her eyes widened as she saw who else was there. She nearly faltered, but ended up continuing, though with a perhaps a bit more embarrassment than before. “Oh, uh, Sergeant Barnes, I didn’t know you were here. Um, dinner’s just about ready…”_

_Jemma gave her a little smile. “We’ll be right up.” Skye ducked out, leaving them alone again, but the moment had passed. Bucky could have sighed, though he could have sworn Jemma looked disappointed as well. She recovered first, starting to move away. “Shall we?”_

_It was the last thing he felt like doing, but he nodded and followed her out of the lab. “Best not to keep them waiting.”_

~*~

When Skye came down to the lab, she found Fitz staring at what he’d set up, a pained expression on his face. Immediately, a cold sense of dread settled in her stomach. Had they been wrong? Was this not how the nanobots activated after all? “What’s wrong? Did it not work?”

Fitz looked up at her, seemingly a little startled at the interruption, though he calmed as soon as he saw it was Skye. “No...not, it’s not that. I just...I can’t…” He looked like he was struggling with how to express just what he meant, and Skye felt a little pang of sympathy. He had an easier time communicating with Jemma than with the rest of them, and without her here to help put him at ease old roadblocks were starting to make themselves known it seemed.

She wasn’t Jemma, but she could try to help. She often did when Jemma was away for one reason or another. She and Fitz had always been on good terms, and he was more comfortable with her than with some of the others. She approached him slowly, leaning her arms on the table around the corner from him so as not to crowd him too much. “Walk me through it? Maybe I can help.”

He pursed his lips, as if working through the request, but finally nodded. “It’s ready. But I need to use…” he pointed at the vial filled with a red substance “...and add it to these…” he pointed at the container she assumed had the nanobots considering it was hooked up to a frequency monitor “...and I can’t…it’s what _she_ would do.”

Skye’s expression softened. The idea of using Jemma’s blood to activate the trackers was a bit disturbing in the abstract, and she knew Fitz had never been fond of the messier side of science in the way that Jemma was. She could understand how the two things combined could set him on edge. “Do you want me to do it?” she offered. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea of doing it herself either, but someone had to if they were going to find Jemma.

Fitz looked up at her and she could see the conflict behind his eyes, but he finally nodded, taking a few steps back from the table so Skye could work. She found a pair of gloves and slipped them on before she took a few drops of Jemma’s blood and added it to the nanobots. It felt strange to be doing this, like she was somehow trying to fill Jemma’s shoes even if that wasn’t the case at all, but it made her absence all the more apparent. Fitz seemed to feel equally awkward about the whole thing, though once it was done and he could fix his attention on the screen displaying the results he seemed better.

Skye slipped off the gloves almost immediately and joined him. He was typing away furiously, and while she didn’t follow everything that was going on even she couldn’t miss how numbers seemed to be disappearing from the screen at a furious rate. It took some time, but when the screen settled on one range he looked up at her hopefully. “That’s it. That’s what we’re looking for.”

“I can take it from here. Come on, let’s see what we can find,” she said, giving his shoulder a little, reassuring squeeze before heading up to the command center. She could do better work from the system up there than in the lab.

~*~

One look around the room and it was clear that the hope they’d had just hours ago had vanished. The unity Steve had seen in the group in their last gathering had dissolved into a strained, fractured state of being that he was sure was going to give him a headache. Skye and Bucky looked like they were near to blows and Fitz was hovering uncomfortably in a corner looking like he would rather be anywhere else. At least Natasha was keeping her cool, but then again it was Natasha.

“What do you mean it didn’t work?” Bucky said furiously. “I thought you said-”

“I _said_ it would work if it was still transmitting. Too much time has passed, the best I can do is trace the pings from the satellites. It’ll narrow it down, but I can’t pinpoint it exactly.”

“Isn’t this what you’re supposed to be good at? Jemma’s _life_ is at stake here-”

“Don’t you think I know what’s at stake? She’s my friend too, you know!”

“Well she’s more-” Bucky suddenly shut his mouth, a grimace crossing his face and he pushed off from the table and turned away. All eyes turned to him, surprised at what had been about to come out of his mouth. So...they’d finally done something about that after all. It had to be recent, or someone would have known, and judging by all the shocked faces no one did. Steve had known that Bucky was going to be on edge throughout this whole thing, but knowing that this happened right after he and Jemma admitted what they really were to each other only made it all worse. He was suddenly extremely thankful that Bucky hadn’t taken a vehicle and driven off after her blindly by now.

“There’s another way we can find her,” Natasha said with a significant look toward Bucky. “Who do we know that would use this sort of technology?”

Bucky turned to look at her and Steve could see a realization dawn over his face before it hardened into a mask of determination. He stormed out of the room, and Steve started after him but Natasha put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Natasha, we can’t just let him go off like this, I need to go after him.”

She shook her head. “Let him go. Trust me on this one. Skye,” she said turning back to the younger woman. “You said you can still narrow down the area they might be holding her in, right?”

Skye nodded, clearly still reeling a bit from what just happened. “Yeah, yeah of course. It’s already done.”

Natasha nodded. “Good. And you can leak the location of the holding area that’s an hour north of here without raising an eyebrows, correct?”

Skye’s brow furrowed. “Of course, but…”

Steve understood by now exactly what Natasha had in mind, but he wasn’t entirely she he was comfortable with it. He turned away from Skye, leaning in toward Natasha. “Are you sure this is a good idea? How do we know for sure it’s them, and that she’s the reason for all this?”

“We don’t, but do you have any better ideas?”

Steve gave a frustrated sigh. He wished he did. This was going to be very risky, and they might lose an important prisoner in the process. If she got free again who knew how long it would be before they tracked her down. It had been difficult enough getting their hands on her this time, and he didn’t want to repeat the process. Still, if they were right and it got Jemma back… “Unfortunately, no.” He turned back to Skye. “Do what she asked. And send our people a warning that they’re going to come under attack. Tell them to put up a good show, but the prisoner needs to be allowed to be taken.”

Skye gave him a curious look, but knew better than to question it and immediately got to work. Steve started to leave the room, motioning for Natasha to follow. “Come on, we’d best get over there before Bucky forgets we need her alive and does something we’ll all regret.”


	3. Chapter 3

_She could feel his eyes on her as she raised the gun again, emptying the clip into the paper target hanging several yards in front of her. She didn’t know why, but it made her nervous to have him watch her like this. She knew it was for her own good; she was a terrible shot and that wasn’t going to stand any longer, especially after the ambush the other week. Still, having him watch her so intently brought her back to her schoolgirl days. Everyone had always been staring at the child attending university waiting for her to screw up, to make the mistake that would send her back home. For as hard as it had been to tune all those people out and prove them all wrong, it seemed almost impossible to forget the single person that was there watching her every move now._

_She lowered the gun and sighed as the target was brought closer and she could see just how much she’d missed by. She didn’t even need to look at him to know he’d be disappointed. He was doing his best to teach her, but she, for whatever reason, just wasn’t taking to it. He was one of the best marksmen she’d ever seen, but even after spending weeks practicing with him any potential killshots she might have made were by accident rather than design. She took the ear protectors off and went to put up the gun in frustration. She wasn’t going to get any better at this, she’d just have to be more careful in the future._

_“Where do you think you’re going?”_

_She paused, turning to look at him. “It’s hopeless. There’s no point in wasting either of our time on trying to teach me something I can’t do.”_

_“Except you can and you’re choosing not to. You’re missing on purpose,” he said evenly, crossing his arms._

_Her jaw dropped at the accusation. “Are you mad? Haven’t you been watching me? I couldn’t hit someone if they were two feet in front of me unless it was an accident.”_

_He shook his head. “I have been watching you, and that’s how I know. Your aim is perfect, it’s only when you actually go to pull the trigger that you jerk the gun away from the mark just enough so it won’t hit, or if it does it won’t kill.”_

_She stared at him in shock. “That’s- I’m- No, you’re wrong-”_

_He raised a hand and cut off her protests. “Jemma, I’ve seen a lot more shooting than you have. I’ve done a lot more shooting than you have too. I know what I’m talking about. You don’t want to believe you can do it because you don’t want to have to take responsibility for killing someone.”_

_The observation struck her dumb, left her frozen in place. Could he possibly be right? She didn’t want to kill anyone, that was true, but it wasn’t like she was going to do that in a firing range anyway. So why would she…?_

_“Do you trust me?”_

_Her eyes snapped back to him, the questions filling her mind quieting at the introduction of his own. She looked at him in confusion. “Of course I do, you know that.”_

_He nodded and motioned for her to come close. Still a bit confused, she did. Before she realized what was happening, he grabbed her, whipping her around to press her back against him, one hand over her mouth the other around her waist. Immediately instinct kicked in. One of her feet came down hard on his arch, her head slammed back into his face, and an elbow into his gut. His grip loosened and she pulled away, whirling on him and the gun was steady in her hands as she pointed it at his head._

_Much to her surprise, Bucky was wiping a tiny bit of blood from his nose and chuckling. “Told you you could do it.”_

_She was horrified. What if the gun had been loaded, what if she’d pulled the trigger? She immediately dropped the arm holding it. “Bucky, I-”_

_“Jemma, don’t apologize,” he said firmly. “That’s what I was hoping you’d do. In this life you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to in order to survive. I’ll do my best to keep you safe, but if I’m not there you need to be able to do this. If the worst happens, **you have to stay alive.** You have to survive long enough for me to get to you.” Those last two sentences were so earnest, so insistent that she felt something unexpected stir in her. She worried for him of course, but this was the first time she realized he might worry about her in the same way._

_The next moment the inflection was gone, however, as if he realized just how close he was to revealing something and tried to cover it up with a joke. “No one else is going to patch me up, after all,” he ended with a smirk. “Now go get another clip and let’s try this again. For real this time.”_

~*~

The room she was being kept in was small, scarcely large enough to be called a room rather than a closet. There was a small bathroom with a toilet attached, but other than that it was completely bare. She’d almost managed to make a break for it, taking advantage of the fact they weren’t watching her too closely when they tried to transfer her from the van to the building. She’d disarmed one and taken out three more before they’d managed to subdue her again. If it weren’t for the fact she couldn’t run on her ankle she might have gotten away. Bucky would been proud.

If he was still alive that was. She didn’t know how bad the damage had been on the other side of the door, just what the explosion had done. Bucky was stronger than most, could survive more than just about anyone she knew, but there was a limit to human endurance, even enhanced as his was. If he’d been too close, if too much of the building had been brought down on him…

She curled up further into herself in the corner. She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t know why she was here, or if she’d ever get another chance to escape. She’d already shown them that she had more training than they would have expected from a scientist who never passed her field assessment. If they had such a test in place at SHIELD now she would have passed with flying colors, but that was information not many knew. That had always been by design; Bucky training her had been something that was kept between them for the most part. Coulson knew, though, and it was part of why she’d been sent into the field a little more often. Part of why she’d ended up here.

She didn’t know how long she’d been held, which only made her more anxious. Time had become impossible to keep track of once they’d knocked her out after the escape attempt. Her palm wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it worried her that there was still a trace of blood left. She wished she knew why this was happening, but even more than that she just wished she knew if Bucky was alright.

The door slid open and Jemma was jarred out of her thoughts, looking up to see a pair of armed men slipping into the room, guns trained on her, while a third approached her with a pair of handcuffs. Apparently they weren’t taking any more chances with her. She tried to pull away when he came to grab her, but there wasn’t anywhere to pull away to, so it didn’t take long for him to shove her up against the wall and restrain her hands behind her back a bit tighter than necessary, and shove her roughly out of the cell.

The room they took her to was also small, but it made her cell feel palatial by comparison. There was a great deal of lab equipment and she got a sudden sick feeling in her stomach as she started piecing together why they had taken her here. The only question was what exactly they wanted her to create, but whatever it was she doubted it would be good.

She was pushed into a chair across from a man who was looking at her with eyes that sent a chill down her spine. Of all the people she could have seen in front of her the last would have been Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. Her stomach sank; if he was here personally attending to her then her situation was far worse than she’d thought. “Agent Simmons. So kind of you to join us. I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” he drawled a bit smugly. He had the upper hand here, both of them knew it and he didn’t seem to be afraid of rubbing it in if the tone of his voice was anything to go by.

He let the silence stretch out between them for a long while before finally breaking it. “Not as curious as your file would suggest, then. Interesting,” he said appraisingly. “You and your compatriots have robbed me of some very valuable data over the years, as well as my top researcher. Since you’ve taken away my ability to do it myself, you are going to recreate the super soldier serum for me to repay that debt.”

_The serum._ She shook her head. They’d made quite a bit of progress against HYDRA in the past years, though there was still a long way to go. However, one of their most hard-won victories was the recovery of all data related to the Centipede project and the recapture of Raina. If that was what they wanted from her she wasn’t going to give it to them. There was a reason that even she wanted most of that data deleted rather than kept for future study. “If you think I’m going to help you recreate that you’re mad. Not that I even could - people have been trying to do that for decades with no success.”

He smirked. “Ah, but those people aren’t you. You’ve had more access to data on variants than anyone else, and with your skill I’d be willing to bet you could have something ready for me in a week. Or you will if you want to live.”

“Do you really think threatening my life is going make me help you?” She knew how dangerous a working serum could be in the wrong hands, and she wasn’t about to help someone make it willingly. She wouldn’t be able to live with the consequences of it being used against innocent people. HYDRA would do nothing less, but Raina’s faction wasn’t exactly HYDRA, not really. More like an offshoot that allied with them at their convenience, though judging by the Baron’s appearance here that might have changed. Either way, neither group would be up to any good and she wasn’t going to help them.

He shrugged. “No, not really. Let me rephrase it then. I can cause you so much pain that you will be begging for death by the time we’re done with you. Help us and you’ll avoid that. Resist, and you’ll wish you had.”

A cold feeling settled in her stomach. He wasn’t joking, not in the least. She could tell by the way he was looking at her. She could refuse and they’d start right in on her for sure, but being hurt more would decrease her chances of escaping, slim as they were. If she agreed she could probably stall for time, hopefully long enough for someone to find her before they realized what she was doing. SHIELD would have discovered she’d been taken by now, they’d be looking. She just needed to hold out long enough for them to find her. For Bucky to find her.

It felt viscerally wrong to agree, even under false pretenses. Heroes were supposed to accept the torture, to laugh in the face of danger and refuse to give up the information at all costs. She wasn’t that strong, though, and she knew it. However, the longer she kept herself from harm the longer she could lead them astray.

“When do I start?” The words still felt like ashes on her tongue, even if she knew it was the logical thing to do. She just had to hope that Bucky was alive and would come for her before things got worse.

A flicker of what almost seemed like disappointment crossed his face. “You surprise me, Agent Simmons. I would have thought you of all people would have fought me to the bitter end on this. Not that I’m complaining, but it does seem a bit suspicious for someone of your moral fortitude to agree so quickly. I’m not convinced it’s genuine.”

She looked at him in surprise and confusion. “I don’t understand. I’m giving you what you want, isn’t that the point of all this?” She hadn’t expected him to question her agreement. He’d made his threat clear, wasn’t it logical for her to go along? She was a scientist, not a spy or soldier, and she knew her limits. Why was he already doubting her?

“Ah, but will you really? You’ve surprised us once before already. I didn’t expect that you had it in you to actually kill a man in an escape attempt.” She looked down slightly at that. She didn’t like killing and she did everything to avoid it, but she’d had to come to terms with the fact that if it was her life or someone else’s she needed to protect herself. Not that it had done her any good in the end this time; she’d gained nothing but guilt from her actions.

“You’ve clearly had more training than your file indicates, and I’d bet my life you’ve become a better liar too, now, haven’t you?” he said, gaze perceptive and unwavering. The cold feeling in her gut twisted painfully, sending a spike of anxiety straight through her heart. How did he know this much about her? Skye had erased their files, wiped all traces of them away. Had she missed something? Or had he managed to have someone infiltrate SHIELD yet again? Or maybe now that he was allied with Raina she’d shared the information Garrett had on them. That would explain it. Knowing that, she didn’t know what she could say to convince him she’d truly help, not when he’d seen right through her intention to lie and stall for time.

A little smirk crossed his face. “A better liar indeed, but still poor at hiding your feelings I see. You never intended to help, but I didn’t expect you to. You do feel bad about killing my man, though. Interesting.” He looked at her appraisingly for a moment. “The serum could do people a lot of good, you know. Help cure disease, help strengthen the human race. Help us unlock our potential.”

“That’s not what you’re going to do with it,” she retorted. “I’ve seen no evidence that anything you have done is for the good of humanity. If it were you wouldn’t be killing so many of us along the way.”

“Sacrifices must be made in the name of progress. You’re a scientist, you know that. No achievement is without cost.”

She shook her head. Threatening her hadn’t worked and so now he was trying to twist his morality to make it seem like it matched hers. She knew what they did to their test subjects, the horrible crimes they committed in the name of _progress_. She wasn’t going to help them, no matter what they did. “Sometimes the cost is too high.”

“Oh? Are you sure about that? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it was filled with more Steve Rogers? Or perhaps you prefer the newly reformed version of Bucky Barnes?”

She gave him a sharp look at the mention of Bucky, but tried to hide her worry over him. Unsuccessfully, judging by the smile that was growing on his face. “So you do have a preference for the metal armed man. Good to know.”

“He’s a better man than you,” she retorted sharply, the words coming out before she had a chance to stop herself. Jemma realized at this point she was going to confirm his suspicions, but when it came to Bucky she had a harder time hiding her feelings than usual. It wasn’t like the Baron hadn’t already figured out she had a soft spot for him, so as long as he didn’t know just how much she felt for the man it shouldn’t matter. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that. Do you know what he’s done? He’s perpetrated worse crimes than all of us. Don’t try to hold him up as some sort of paragon; we both know better than that.”

“Because you’re so perfect?”

“I will be with your help.”

“I’m not helping you.”

“And finally the truth comes out.” He gave her a predatory smile. “But you’re wrong about that. You _will_ be helping us. Your SHIELD isn’t the virtuous organization you believe it to be, and I’m confident that once you realize that you’ll realize just whose side you’re really on.” He made a gesture with his hand and the guards came forward, lifting her from her seat by the arms. “Take her to begin the treatment. I’ll be by to oversee her progress personally.”


	4. Chapter 4

_The attack on their base had been thwarted, but not nearly quickly enough. They were lucky that they didn’t lose any intel, or at least not that they’d discovered yet, but their location was compromised and half the agents present had given their lives in defense of the others. It was a major blow no matter how you looked at it._

_What concerned him more, however, was how he found her._

_She’d been alone in the lab when it happened. She’d been smart enough to put it into lockdown, to hide and wait it out, but help hadn’t come soon enough. There’d been so many HYDRA agents and so few SHIELD they’d all been stuck wherever they happened to be at the moment of the assault. There’d been no one to come to her rescue when they broke down the door._

_When he was finally able to break away and come after her, the sight stole his breath away. The lab was destroyed; bullet holes, shattered glass, and overturned furniture marred the once pristine set-up. The remains of her work crunched below his feet as he looked for her frantically, hoping the blood pooling on the floor wasn’t hers. “Jemma?” he asked, trying to keep the growing fear from coloring his voice._

_The moment of silence before she answered was one of the most heartrending of his life._

_“Bucky?” came the small, weak reply. He could almost hear the tears in her voice as he rushed to follow it to its source. He paused once he saw her, noting the bodies on the ground in front of her, the gun by her side, and her curled up as small as possible under a desk in the corner. He knew instantly what had happened; the gun wasn’t an ICER, which meant the men were dead._

_He crouched down in front of her. “Jemma, it’s okay. You’re safe now. You can come out,” he said gently, reaching a hand out to her. He couldn’t imagine what she was going through. He’d become fairly desensitized to killing; it was a necessary evil and one he didn’t lose any sleep over more often than not. He could separate that part of his life from the rest. She on the other hand…_

_She looked up at him, tears wetting her cheeks. “I...I tried to get them go...I didn’t want to…”_

_“I know, Jemma, I know. It was them or you.”_

_“I know that, but…”_

_“They didn’t give you a choice. You shouldn’t blame yourself for an action they forced you to take.”_

_She shook her head, still ignoring his outstretched hand. He could see her struggling, the fear and guilt written all over her face…_

_Her_ bruised _face. The shadows had hidden it before, but as she turned her head it became clear as day this was not a fight she’d come out of unscathed. He fought back a sudden surge of anger - she should have been better protected - but now all he was concerned about was getting her the care she needed, and he couldn’t do that if she was afraid to leave her hiding spot. “Jemma, you’re hurt. I can help, but I need you to come out of there.”_

_“I feel sick.”_

_Of course she did. Even if she hadn’t been injured there was no way that Bucky would expect someone like her to not feel ill over what she’d had to do. He certainly had the first time he had to put down an enemy. “It’ll pass. Come on, let’s get you to medical.”_

_Eventually she nodded, wiping the last traces of tears from her cheeks and tentatively reached out to take his hand so he could help her up and out of the room. He knew this wasn’t her first brush with death, far from it, but despite everything she’d been through there had still been a sense of innocence around her. Faint, perhaps, but a lightness that most of the rest of the remnants of SHIELD were lacking. He didn’t see that in her anymore, and that perhaps hurt more than anything else._

_HYDRA was going to pay for this someday. For all of it._

~*~

It took Bucky less than an hour to reach the facility that was holding the person he was looking for. There were a couple of half-hearted attempts to stop him from going toward her cell, but one look and even the most stalwart of guards backed off. For once he was grateful for his reputation because he doubted getting in to see her would have been quite so easy otherwise, at least without Steve’s intervention. Mere moments after the door opened he strode in quickly and purposefully, grabbing her by the neck and pinning her against the wall before she had a chance to react. “Tell me where she is,” he growled.

Raina coolly raised an eyebrow, as if she was being asked what sort of tea she liked rather than stuck in an enclosed space with an angry assassin. “I told you you would regret holding me here.”

“Answer me now or this is going to get a lot more uncomfortable for you,” he said, holding back the impulse to choke the life out of her for the time being. He couldn’t get information from her if he killed her too soon. He had to remember that. The plan depending on her staying alive. Jemma’s life depending on her staying alive.

The threat didn’t seem to have any effect, however. If anything, her gaze turned slightly smug. “Somehow I don’t think your superiors are going to let you do that.”

“You really think they can stop me?”

“You’ve always followed orders. Just because someone else is giving them now doesn’t change your nature. You can’t fight an order any more than you can find her without my help,” she said smoothly, a hint of condescension permeating her tone.

Bucky had to grit his teeth to keep from lashing out at her. She certainly knew which buttons to press, but Jemma’s life was at stake. He’d be damned if he was going to let a few jabs get in the way of getting her back. “So you do know where she is.”

“No. But they won’t need her if they have me back. I might be persuaded to have them let her go unharmed if you release me.”

His fingers closed tighter around her neck. “And you really expect me to believe that after all you’ve done?”

Her chin lifted, her gaze finding his with ease. She gave no indication the pressure he was applying was hurting her in the least, even though he knew it had to. “No, I don’t. But why would we harm her when she could be so useful? You know how brilliant she is; her work has saved me years as it is. Besides, by the time my associates are done with her she’ll want to stay by our side. We’re the ones who are pursuing progress, who want to save the human race, not you.”

The knowledge that they were going to take Jemma, his beautiful, brilliant scientist who never compromised herself for anyone, and try to twist her into one of them...his grip tightened again and something akin to a growl escaped his throat. At first he got no reaction from her, but as he continued to interfere with her breathing her composure began to slip until her eyes were just a bit wider than normal. She attempted to gasp, but he cut it off, staring at her expressionlessly. She’d break, she’d give him something, he just needed to push just a little harder…

“Bucky, let her go.”

Natasha. Right on time. If Bucky had his way he’d just kill Raina now and be done with the whole damn thing, but they needed her alive. For now. He removed his hand and unceremoniously let Raina drop to the floor, watching as she pulled in deep lungfuls of air while glaring at him. She regained her composure quickly, but that didn’t surprise him considering what they knew about her.

She got to her feet calmly, as if he hadn’t just tried to choke the life from her, but this time her eyes were sharp and unforgiving. “You had such potential. It’s a shame, really. You could have been just like Rogers, a herald of humanity’s future, but instead you’re nothing more than a dog on a leash. Not even a very long one by the looks of it,” she ended with a glance toward Natasha.

Bucky stepped forward, arm starting to pull back to swing at Raina, but Natasha’s hand on his arm held him back. “Don’t let her get to you,” she murmured. Bucky’s jaw clenched as he fought the impulse to shake Natasha off and continue with what he intended. He knew Natasha was right, but that didn’t mean it settled any better with him. Raina was the reason Jemma had been taken, and he wanted her to pay for that dearly.

However, that wasn’t the play and he knew it. He slowly dropped his arm and then spun on his heel, marching out of the cell. Natasha lingered for a moment, and he couldn’t help a smirk when he heard her tell Raina, “Do that again and next time I won’t stop him.”

He waited for Natasha to join him before they walked down the hallway to where Steve was waiting for them, a disapproving look on his face. “Did you really have to hurt her? We’re better than that.”

“She wouldn’t have bought it otherwise,” Natasha replied with a little shrug. “It had to be believable. Otherwise it would be too suspicious for us to come pay her a visit and then for her to get broken out a short time later. She’s smart, she’d figure out what was up.”

Bucky nodded in agreement, though privately he didn’t think he’d gotten to hurt the woman enough. After all she and her ilk had put them through in the past years, knowing what they were trying to do now...no. She deserved far worse than a couple bruises on her neck, and if Bucky got the chance he wouldn’t hesitate to be the one to show her that.

Steve worked his jaw slightly, clearly disliking it, but Steve had never liked the messier parts of war, if that’s what this could be called. It was a spy’s game more than anything, all hidden bases and secret agendas, and he’d always been more of the straightforward soldier type. He hadn’t lived in the shadows as long as Bucky and Natasha had and he wasn’t as comfortable with the compromises you had to make when operating in the dark. He was learning, though. Bucky wasn’t sure he really liked that; it felt like he was corrupting the just boy he’d grown up with. Compromises had to be made, though. For the greater good. Or so he told himself.

“There’s no turning back now. The tracker’s in place, the location’s been leaked. What’s done is done,” Bucky reminded Steve. They were going through with this, they were going to get Jemma back, and then they were going to make the bastards that took her pay, regardless of whether or not Steve approved. They weren’t going to get away with this and he was going to make sure of it.

Steve eventually nodded. “You’re right. I’ve already spoken with security, they know what’s coming and the sensitive stuff is being moved to a more secure location onsite.” He gave a little sigh. “This had better work.”

“It’ll work. We’ll make sure of it,” Natasha assured him. “Now I suggest we get ready. It’s going to get hot in here real soon if her people react as quickly as we think they will. Skye’s all set to monitor things from the Bus, she’ll be able to let us know as soon as Raina’s on the move.”

Steve nodded. “Bucky, I want you back on the Bus.”

“But you said-”

“I said I’d let you help get her back, and I will. When we find where she is you’ll be on the team going to get her. But you’re not going to hold back when they come to retrieve Raina, and we need them to win this one. Believably.”

“I’ll go back with you,” Natasha offered. “Steve’s right, it’s best if we’re not here when it happens.”

Bucky crossed his arms in frustration. He knew they were right, but he didn’t like it. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “Fine. Just make damn sure it works.” If it didn’t he was going to start interrogating every HYDRA agent he could get his hands on until he found her, and Steve wouldn’t like how he did it. Not that Bucky cared; he just wanted her back before they could hurt her...if it wasn’t already too late for that.


End file.
